


A matter of perspective

by Kittyknowsthings



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cultural Differences, Gen, somewhat bleak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 05:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittyknowsthings/pseuds/Kittyknowsthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is it still a meal for two if only one can muster up an appetite? Once more, Julian and Garak find themselves at odds over lunch, this time on a matter of far more consequence than the relative merit of Cardassian literature.</p>
<p>A vignette inspired by a line in the Icerigger trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A matter of perspective

„I just don't understand it!“ Julian says, not for the first time today, while poking around in his marinara. It simply doesn't taste right today. „We could help them!“

His lunch companion seems to have no such hesitance in enjoying his meal. „You offered, and they have declined. What is there left to understand?“ He asks before taking yet another forkful of pasta from his now nearly-empty plate. 

„They are dying out! They have twelve generations at most!“ 

„As you have repeatedly informed me.“ 

Garak's undisturbed calmness is starting to anger him. 

„We could _help_ them!“ He helplessly repeats. „Should they not be grateful for the opportunity? All they'd have to do is join up and their future would be secure! Instead, in a few hundred years, their planet will be nothing but a graveyard, because they refuse to accept our help!“

„And again, such a federation point of view“ - Garak tsks, and for a moment, Julian wonders whether it is a universal gesture or if he had looked it up just to patronize him - „that everyone wants and requires what you deem necessary, that everyone should want to join the Commonwealth that is your precious federation of planets.  
Some species choose to keep their distance for a reason, doctor, just like the Bran. They don't need your understanding. They need acceptance.“

Julian could indeed not comprehend that and wonders if that only proves Garak's point.

Was his own, human instinct for survival blinding him? 

Were _all_ his human instincts blinding him? 

Had it been a mere coincidence that the first species joining the Federation had been able to find enough common ground to do so? 

„Do you think it is true, though?“

Garak only tilts his head, his whole face a question, and Julian realizes he had not been aboard his train of thought.

„That we cannot understand each other, not really. That we will always have to exist as a sort of … psychological penpals, never quite able to touch each other“ 

The more he thinks about it, the bleaker the notion seems, yet Garak smiles. 

„If that is so, my dear doctor, I very much enjoy your letters.“


End file.
